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Tips from the Top: Customer Service

With tonight's much-anticipated Australian Mortgage Awards fast approaching, Broker TV caught up with Justin Doobov and Simon Orbell, nominees in the Best Customer Service from an Individual Office category, for some wise words on customer service.

Video transcript below:

Anna Temple: With Friday’s Australian Mortgage Awards tantalisingly on the horizon, we caught with two nominees from the Best Customer Service from an individual office category for some wise words on customer service.

Simon Brell, Smartmove

Simon Brell: Here we are and we are looking at having another great night at the Awards this year, being nominated for three categories which we are super excited about and we are just so [chaffed] to be a part of it all and honoured.

Justin Doobov, Intelligent Finance

Justin Doobov: To be one in the finalists in the last 8 years of the AMAs, so it’s fantastic boost to our team morale, to not only have their clients give fantastic feedback for how good our service is, but also to be recognised by the industry.

Anna Temple: Justin Doobov of Intelligent Finance believes it’s all about exceeding expectations, whereas as Simon Obrell of Smartmove maintains it’s more about a personal touch, making sure a client walks away an advocate of your business.

Justin Doobov: I mean it’s going the extra mile, setting the bar height and then aiming to exceed it and offering consistent service, doesn’t matter what size the loan is, whether it’s a small loan or multi million dollar loan, consistency is the key there.

Simon Orbell: The customer service for us is all about making sure that the customer becomes an advocate of our business from the point that they leave our offices. So all of us when we give the same advice that we will give to our own sister or to our own mother and that’s sort of how we run things and that’s I feel a big part of our success. We are just so focused on what’s right for that particular person in that particular situation.

Anna Temple: When it comes to industry trends, Doobov notes that clients are increasingly rate sensitive and often need to be reminded of the value of advice, whereas Orbell muses over the ways technology could really improve processes.

Justin Doobov: Over the past 3 years we have noticed a lot more clients are rate sensitive, because all the advertising in the market is about price, price, price, though after our initial meeting with our clients, we show them that it’s the advice and the service is the most important, so as long as we can do that at a competitive rate. And we deal it with over 40 lenders, so we are able to get very cheap interest rates and then we just work our exactly what, how much service the clients expects from a lender and we can make sure that we match that with service levels that a lender offers meets expectations from the client.

Simon Orbell: One of the biggest things that technology can do to strengthen and create more efficiencies in our industry is, as regards to the loan documentation process. At the moment it’s an extremely manual, physical part of the process and I believe that as time goes by, obviously that whole process could be taken online and you know even to the point where customers could receive and accept their loan documentation online and take away all of that back end time and inefficiency that’s being created through obviously all the legal requirements that should hopefully, eventually go more towards that online platform. I also think that from a frontend point of view, there is a real opportunity for either the aggregators or the technology providers to work on a system that can really enhance our ability to interact with our customers and get all of the data upfront and get it right the first time, so that then the whole process flows more smoothly towards that loan documentation and unconditional approval process. At the moment I feel like that’s a probably a little bit of disconnect, at the moment the aggregators allow us to obviously lodge our files electronically with the lenders, but I feel that the interaction with the customer just that part of the process can improve from a technology point of view, so that everyone can provide better customer service.

Anna Temple: This is Anna Temple reporting for Australian Broker Online.